Peter Capaldi’s departure

Posted on February 6, 2017 by P.J.

So, for anyone who hasn’t heard the earth-shattering news, Peter Capaldi will be leaving Doctor Who after Series 10, to regenerate in the 2017 Christmas special. I wasn’t ready for the news to be honest, because it doesn’t feel that long ago that we welcomed Capaldi into the role. But, on the other hand, I was kind of expecting this. Peter’s not a young man, and the role inevitably takes its toll even on sprightly youngsters like Matt Smith and David Tennant. And three seasons, or four years, seems to have become the convention for an actor’s run as the Doctor these days. Anyway, here are some of the thoughts that have been running through my head since I heard the news.

On one level I’m disappointed. Peter Capaldi has been an absolutely fantastic Doctor and it was always going to be sad to see him leave. Although I admit it took me a while to warm to him after Matt left, over Series 9 I came to adore him, so much that I count him as my second favourite Doctor after Matt Smith, and Twelve and Clara have become my favourite Doctor and companion team after Eleven and the Ponds. Of course I knew that Peter had to leave eventually, but I thought (or hoped) that with Peter it would be different. I saw uniquely in Peter, unlike in Matt, the potential to become the next iconic Doctor Who, the show’s modern Tom Baker, if he stayed around for an extended run. I would have loved to have seen Peter establish himself in the role long-term. I would have loved to have seen his face and his name become synonymous with the Doctor, like Tom Baker was. Given how much Peter revered the show and loved the role, and given that he wasn’t a young actor like David or Matt with full careers ahead of them, I half expected him to do exactly that. But alas. It’s been a privilege to have had Peter at all, so I can’t complain that he didn’t stay for longer.

Peter has undoubtedly been the best actor ever to star in the role. He brought compelling gravitas, intensity and passion to the role. His Doctor was utterly bewitching to watch. Unlike most actors who take up the role, usually up-and-coming actors or relatively small names, Peter was a distinguished and widely-respected actor when he took the role. It’s probably not exaggerating to say Peter was (and is) one of the most distinguished British actors of his generation. The role was, frankly, below him, but he took it up anyway because he loved the show so much and it was his childhood dream to be the Doctor. Do we realise how privileged we are to have had him? Without at all detracting from Matt or David or Chris or any of the other actors who’ve played the role, Peter’s performances were just of a higher calibre than any who’ve come before him, as the tours de force of Heaven Sent, Hell Bent, Twelve’s speech in The Zygon Inversion proved. You could see how devoted to the role he was by the way he put everything into his performances, and it’s made for some of the best Doctor Who ever (in my opinion).

When Twelve regenerates we’ll get a new actor in the role, and that in itself is exciting, as sad as it is to see Peter go. The speculation has already started (and I’m going to join in soon—watch this space!) What’s already clear is that the calls for a female Doctor are louder than ever this time round. I’ve shared my reasons why I don’t want a female Doctor before, but since the topic has come up again I’m going to write another post on the topic soon reiterating my thoughts. I’m not sure what I would do if, come Christmas, Twelve regenerates and the Doctor is a woman, but I think I would keep watching, albeit begrudgingly. I would give it a chance, at least, but I can’t see it working.

In any case I think it’s unlikely that a female actor will be cast as the next Doctor. A new showrunner is taking over, and, with Peter (and probably Pearl, too) going at the same time, everything is going to be new. Like in 2010, it’ll practically be a reboot, and the show has to win its audience over all over again. I think, in those circumstances, Chibnall and the production team would consider that introducing a female Doctor would be too big a risk to take, because if the audience don’t take to a female Doctor and turn away from the show, the BBC might easily be tempted to make the decision that the show is finished and cancel it.

On the subject of Series 11, though, even though I would have loved to have seen Peter continue as the Doctor under Chris Chibnall and see a new showrunner’s interpretation of his Doctor, I’m also excited by the prospect of a 2010-style (soft) reboot. A totally clean slate. That means, I guess, Pearl would have to go, too. I realise it might be uncharitable to Pearl to advocate for her to leave before we’ve even seen her, but I have a feeling that she’s only staying around for one series anyway, since Series 10 is Moffat’s final series. Maybe Chibnall would have preferred to have some familiar faces around him when he started, maybe not, but the opportunity to totally reinvent the show, with a completely clean slate, is too good to pass up. I think Steven Moffat’s total overhaul of the show in 2010 was immensely successful in breathing new life into the show and ushering in an exciting new era. I’m looking forward to seeing how Chibnall recasts Doctor Who in his vision.

Now, let’s start preparing ourselves for another emotional regeneration. What am I saying? You know you’re going to cry, you may as well accept it. At least we’ll get to see Twelve with Clara again… *lip quivers*

Music of Doctor Who: Twelve’s Theme

Posted on December 13, 2016 by P.J.

New thing. At appropriate intervals I’m going to post my favourite music from Doctor Who, perhaps with a view to doing a “Best Music of Doctor Who” series or post sometime in the future. Because Doctor Who, both modern and classic, has some truly outstanding music, an aspect of the show that sometimes gets overlooked beside the writing and the acting.

The first post in this series then, features A Good Man (the Twelfth Doctor’s theme). It’s just wonderfully epic. It makes Twelve’s “saving the day” moments that much more exhilarating, and, truly, it suits Capaldi’s Doctor so well. Definitely one of the better pieces of Doctor Who music, in my opinion.

Typing Doctor Who: Victorian Clara (ESTP)

Posted on December 3, 2016 by P.J.

ESTPs:

Flexible and tolerant, they take a pragmatic approach focused on immediate results. Theories and conceptual explanations bore them – they want to act energetically to solve the problem. Focus on the here-and-now, spontaneous, enjoy each moment that they can be active with others. Enjoy material comforts and style. Learn best through doing.

So yesterday I was watching The Snowmen, the 2012 Christmas special which featured Jenna Coleman’s second appearance in Doctor Who, as the Victorian incarnation of Clara. And it struck me as I was watching it that there are some subtle differences in the way Clara’s various incarnations are written. The ones we’ve seen—the original Clara, Victorian Clara, and Oswin—all fit broadly into the same mould, but they’re not the same. For example, the original Clara (Clara Prime?) from 21st Century Britain, was written as a technological illiterate (much like me), but the first of Clara’s incarnations we saw, Oswin (or Dalek Clara), in Asylum of the Daleks, was a technological genius. Victorian Clara, too, was noticeably different from Clara Prime and Oswin, yet sharing much in common in terms of personality.

This should be expected—when Clara entered the Doctor’s time stream on Trenzalore, she birthed thousands of versions of herself throughout the Doctor’s timeline, living thousands of distinct lives in thousands of different places. Personality is partly a result of genetics (nature), but also substantially determined by environment (nurture). How could the various versions of Clara not differ in certain ways? No doubt there are versions of Clara of every personality type running around the Doctor’s timeline, and none, since the MBTI describes human personality, and we know at least one version of Clara was an alien: the Gallifreyan Clara who persuaded the First Doctor to choose his Type 40 Tardis.

With all that said, I think Victorian Clara is an ESTP. That’s a subtle difference from Clara Prime, whom I typed as an ESFP, and I stick to that typing. (I’ll also tentatively type Oswin as an ENTP, a rather more considerable distinction). Along with the description I linked to above, a good brief description of ESTPs is:

ESTPs are outgoing, straight-shooting types. Enthusiastic and excitable, ESTPs are “doers” who live in the world of action. Blunt, straight-forward risk-takers, they are willing to plunge right into things and get their hands dirty. They live in the here-and-now, and place little importance on introspection or theory. The look at the facts of a situation, quickly decide what should be done, execute the action, and move on to the next thing.

Some celebrity and fictional ESTPs you might know are: Miley Cyrus, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Donald Trump, Madonna, Jaime Lannister (Game of Thrones), Bart Simpson (The Simpsons), Oliver Queen (Arrow), Dean Winchester (Supernatural). And of course, Captain Jack Harkness.

Let’s start with what Victorian Clara and Clara Prime have in common. They’re both perky, flirtatious and outgoing. They’re both daring and have a thirst for action and danger. They’re both cleverer than they let on. Everything Steven Moffat seems to like in a female companion, in other words. But I think they clearly differ in one fundamental respect: Clara Prime is more gentle, more touchy-feely, and Victorian Clara is more hard-nosed and logical. Clara Prime’s emotions are more frequently on show—not in the sense that she’s emotional or irrational (she can be very rational and tough-minded when she wants to), but in that she more readily feels about things, she processes things through her emotional filter, and since she’s an extrovert (an ExFP), her feelings are much more clearly on show (something I’ve learned about ExFP types from knowing quite a few of them).

Compare Victorian Clara. Victorian Clara’s emotions don’t leak out of her the way Clara Prime’s do. She has feelings, sure—there are a couple of times in the episode when Victorian Clara becomes emotional—but she typically approaches things coolly and logically. She’s an adept problem-solver: the way she figured out what the Doctor’s plan was (to take the Ice Lady up to the cloud) was a masterclass in using quick deductive logic in a crisis situation. See, too, how she responds to happening upon the snow and the Doctor: she wants to understand the snow, and understand the Doctor. She interrogates a random stranger about the snowman rather than dismissing it as something inconsequential, or as her memory playing tricks on her or something. The curious Doctor piques her interest and she follows him all the way to his Tardis in the clouds. She wants to know, to understand. That’s very typical of the Introverted Thinking (Ti) that characterises TP types—the desire to understand and to make logical sense of things. Curiosity.

What I’ve been talking about is what fundamentally distinguishes Victorian Clara, the ESTP, from Clara Prime, the ESFP. Expressed in MBTI terms, it’s the distinction between each type’s primary judgment process: ESTPs use Introverted Thinking (Ti) to make judgments, and ESFPs use Introverted Feeling (Fi). But both share Extraverted Sensing (Se) as their dominant perceptive (information-gathering) process. Se is being attuned to the sensory details of things around you, in the moment. It’s being aware of sensations, colours, tastes, people, activity, beauty around you, and wanting to interact with it all. It’s also taking action in the moment. The example I gave above of Victorian Clara deducing the Doctor’s plan also illustrates this, her ability to react and take action and think coolly in the moment. Crisis and danger don’t fluster her, she thrives on it. That says ESTP all over. Victorian Clara’s Se is also illustrated when she decides on the spot to pursue the Doctor after basically being told to bug off, and in the way she spontaneously kisses the Doctor. The latter, overt (and spontaneous) displays of sexuality, is very Se, and very ESxP. Amy, an ENFP, spontaneously kissed the Doctor too, once, but one thing I noticed about Victorian Clara was how much more physical a person she was than Amy, which indicates to me SP rather than NP.

One last thing I noted about Victorian Clara is her deftness, as a governess, in caring for Francesca and Digby, Captain Latimer’s children. I think this is illustrative of another point of distinction between Victorian Clara and Clara Prime, between ESTP and ESFP. Although she’s a Thinker, Victorian Clara’s nurturing abilities come from her tertiary Extraverted Feeling (Fe), which is being attuned to the feelings and values of others and being skilled in dealing with others’ feelings. As an extravert, and a well-rounded person in general, Victorian Clara can slip fairly easily into using Fe in her role as a governess, a carer of children, when she needs to. In contrast, FP types like Clara Prime use Introverted Feeling, which, in contrast to the outward, interpersonal focus of Fe, is attuned to the person’s own intrapersonal feelings and values. Victorian Clara’s emotional expression is somewhat affected, because it’s focussed upon others, while Clara Prime’s expression comes off as more authentic and sincere, because it’s focussed upon herself. See my post on Clara (Prime) for more on the way Clara uses Fi.

5 exciting new shows I’m excited about

Posted on August 26, 2016 by P.J.

There are a lot of upcoming new shows I’m excited about and I’m going to fanboy about all of them and you can’t stop me.

Class

Obviously. Naturally, with the extended wait between Doctor Who series, I need some new Who-related content to tide me over until Series 10. I’m genuinely excited about Class. I love the concept and, being a new fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m really encouraged by the constant comparisons between the concept for Class and Buffy. And, frankly, it’s about time the BBC produced another Doctor Who spinoff. Torchwood was great, but it’s been off the air since 2012 and left a big, gaping Who-spinoff-shaped hole in its place. While we don’t know much about Class yet apart from the bare skeleton of a concept, and the cast, it does look like it’s going to be a show that appeals to grown-ups as well as a younger demographic, much like Buffy did. In that sense it’s sort of midway between Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures in terms of the audience it’s pitched at. I have very high hopes for it, and I’m excited to see where it will go.

Class is being produced by the BBC and will air in October.

Victoria

Because I need more Jenna Coleman in my life. I’m so excited to see Jenna Coleman in the starring role in a TV drama as high-profile and ambitious as Victoria. There’s no doubt Jenna deserves it. She acquitted herself with high distinction during her run on Doctor Who, visibly maturing into an exceptional actress over her three years’ playing Clara, and I’m really excited to see how she holds herself in what is no doubt the very challenging role of Queen Victoria. The production itself looks amazing, with (if you’ve seen the publicity shots and the trailers) very lavish period detail. Jenna stars alongside a star-studded cast including Tom Hughes, Eve Myles, Rufus Sewell and Tommy Knight. There are a lot of Who alumni involved in this production, too: Jenna is joined by Eve Myles (of Torchwood) and Tommy Knight (of The Sarah Jane Adventures), so there’s plenty for Whovians to enjoy.

Victoria begins this Sunday, 28th August, on ITV.

The Crown

Another exciting new period drama about a great Queen of England—this one about our own Elizabeth II, which follows the Queen’s life from her wedding in 1947 to the present day. The main reason I’m excited about The Crown is that it features two of my favourite contemporary actors, not only my favourite Doctor, Matt Smith, as Prince Philip, but also Claire Foy in the starring role of Elizabeth II. For those unfamiliar with Claire Foy, I can confirm she’s a brilliant actress who played played a number of minor roles in various series and films before coming to much greater prominence as Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall and now in this series. I’m incredibly excited to see her in The Crown, maybe even more so than I am to see Matt! Look forward to it. It should be great.

The Crown will air on Netflix beginning 4th November 2016.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I loved Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events books when I was a kid, and I’m so excited that the books are being made into a TV adaptation. I mean the 2004 film was good BUT THERE ARE 13 BOOKS DAMNIT DON’T START A JOB YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FINISH. In contrast, a whole TV series adapting the whole series of books has the capacity to really do justice to the stories (I’m a huge advocate for the adaptation of book series into TV series for this reason). Apart from the fact that it’s being produced by Paramount for Netflix, we don’t know a great deal about the series yet, although apparently filming has finished, so it should be released fairly soon. It stars Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf, and child actors Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes as Violet and Klaus Baudelaire. I can’t wait to see it. If you haven’t, I’d definitely recommend reading the books first if you’re going to watch it, not only because the books are amazing, but also because, as with any screen adaptation of a novel, you get so much more out of the screen adaptation if you’ve read the book first.

A Series of Unfortunate Events will air on Netflix.

His Dark Materials

Another one of my all-time favourite novel series, His Dark Materials, is being made into a TV drama by the BBC, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m thrilled that Philip Pullman’s wonderful trilogy is being made into a long-form TV drama, because, you know, the last time the trilogy was adapted onto screen, in the 2007 film The Golden Compass, it was kind of rubbish. Very rubbish, actually. Philip Pullman’s stories really demand the long-form TV format, so it’s gratifying and exciting to see that they’re finally going to get the treatment they deserve. There are some very impressive names involved in the production, too: it’s being written by Jack Thorne (who wrote the stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and produced by Julie Gardner and Jane Trantor (who both oversaw Doctor Who’s return to screen in 2005), which should reassure us that the stories are in very capable hands. Apart from that, though, we actually don’t know much at all about the series. It was commissioned late last year by the BBC, but as far as I know no casting or writing has been done, let alone filming. It may be a while before we see it on our screens.

His Dark Materials is being produced by the BBC.

Which of these upcoming shows are you excited for? Feel free to fangirl/boy in the comments!

Doctor Who’s best speeches | 9-7

Posted on August 19, 2016 by P.J.

See here for 12-10 in this series!

9. Clara Oswald, Listen

Watching this again just now gave me goosebumps. It always does. It’s a wonderfully haunting little sequence about the power and the virtue of being afraid, overlaid by this beautiful monologue of Clara’s. The controversy about Clara’s agency in “making” the Doctor aside, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who would deny that the sequence in itself is very powerful and moving, perhaps the best moment in what is already a standout episode. It’s a beautifully rousing message, and it’s articulated so perfectly by Clara in this sequence — I’m just frustrated I couldn’t put this one any higher, but it’s contending with some very stiff competition.

8. Twelfth Doctor, Flatline

You might think this speech of the Twelfth Doctor’s in Flatline is not really a very important speech, that it’s just standard Doctorish flamboyance and bombast, but I think it’s actually hugely significant for the Twelfth Doctor as a milestone in his character arc over Series 8, which is the reason I love it and always get chills watching it. Remember that the Twelfth Doctor began his life agonising over whether he was a “good man”, unsure of his identity and his purpose. Slowly over the course of Series 8 he came to remember who he, the Doctor, was and what his purpose was, culminating in the “I’m an idiot!” speech in Death in Heaven. This speech is an important milestone along the way, being the moment the Doctor comes to terms with and embraces the role he has found himself in, though he might not understand why he has been put in it, as “the man who stops the monsters”. His cold, triumphal fury as he’s banishing the Boneless is enough to tell you all you need to know.

7. Eleventh Doctor, The Eleventh Hour

No explanation needed here, really. This is what I like to call Eleven’s “I am the Doctor” moment (literally), just as Ten’s speech at the end of The Christmas Invasion was his, and Twelve’s speech in Flatline, I believe, was his — the moment the new Doctor casts off the shadow of the previous actor and establishes himself emphatically in the eyes of the audience as the Doctor. It usually actually involves the words “I am the Doctor”, as here. This speech was shorter and punchier than Ten’s speech, but just as, if not more, powerful. The moment Matt Smith walks through a montage of all ten previous Doctors and declares “Hello. I’m the Doctor,” is amazing, chills-inducing stuff.

What I’ve been watching: July 2016

Posted on July 23, 2016 by P.J.

Just to share with y’all what I’ve been watching lately.

TV shows

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I started watching Buffy recently after people started suggesting that the upcoming Doctor Who spinoff Class will be a lot like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Steven Moffat himself characterised the concept of Class as a “British Buffy”. I have such high hopes for Class, I’m actually really looking forward to it, despite the lukewarm reaction of much of the fandom, that I was naturally intrigued by the comparisons with Buffy.

I’m one-and-a-bit seasons into Buffy right now, and I’m really liking what I’m seeing. It’s fast becoming another cult show to add to my list of fandoms. I’ll admit there’s a lot of camp in what I’ve seen so far, especially in the first season, but the campiness is accompanied by genuinely good writing and storytelling and characterisation. It’s very much like Doctor Who in this way in that it’s essentially a fantasy show for kids and teenagers, but there’s such substance in the writing and the characterisation that it easily appeals to older viewers as well—for every Aliens of London there’s a Blink or a Heaven Sent, so to speak. But its strength is definitely its characters, and the characters of Buffy, Cordelia, Xander and Giles make up a tight-knit family of friends in whom it is easy to invest and identify with.

Parks and Recreation

I’ve been seeing Ron Swanson memes all over the place and I kind of felt like I was missing out. I was finally prompted to start watching Parks and Rec when I found out a friend watched it (she sent me a Ron Swanson meme…) She suggested that I start with season 2 rather than season 1, because season 1 apparently sucks, so I’m about halfway through season 2 but haven’t seen season 1 (weird, right?).

I love it. I don’t know why I put off starting watching this show for so long, because within a couple of episodes it became an instant new favourite. I love the documentary-style format, which lends itself so effectively to the show’s comedy (I think it makes all the jokes 10 times funnier). And the characters are all fantastic. Ron Swanson proved to be as amazing and hilarious as I expected, and I’m pleased to have found a cool INTP character in April Ludgate (for those who haven’t been following my Typing Doctor Who posts, I now obsessively try to figure out the MBTI type of every single fictional character I watch). Very good, very funny and addicting show.

Pretty Little Liars

Don’t you dare judge me. I know. Trust me, I know. I was like you once. “I’m a grown man, I am not watching a show about a bunch of teenage girls.” But then I did. It was the Netflix description that intrigued me: it hinted at mystery, murder and plot. I was interested. I thought “It couldn’t hurt, could it?”, and watched an episode. Then another. Then another. Within a few weeks I had watched two whole seasons (50+ episodes). Before I knew it I had binged my way through all five seasons and had caught up with the sixth. Now the seventh season is underway and I’m ravenously devouring each new episode every week.

I wrote a post some time ago when I was relatively new to Pretty Little Liars, extolling the virtues of this show. The reason I love it so much is that it combines great characters and character drama with irresistible plot and mystery and intrigue. It’s the mystery and the overarching plot arc that draws you in and keeps you coming back every week, but it’s the soap opera stuff and the exceptional character writing that makes you continue to care about what happens to these characters. I promise that if you start watching the show, you’ll not only have a favourite character and a new OTP, but you’ll be hooked by the compelling mystery and plot, too.

Pokémon: Indigo League

I LIKED POKEMON BEFORE IT WAS COOL. Unfortunately my phone isn’t good enough to get the Pokemon Go app (*tears*), but I’ve been rewatching the original Pokemon TV show for the last few months—for the memories, you know? It’s been a thrilling blast from the past watching all those old Pokemon episodes that I watched when I was a kid, and I’m pleased to report that they still hold up after all this time.

Rewatching Pokemon, I’m struck by how creative and inventive the writers were in coming up with such a diversity of interesting stories. The Indigo League series has 82 episodes (I’m up to episode 70), and each one of them is a new, exciting adventure. There’s rarely a dull script in there. I also love, having played some of my old Pokemon games recently, seeing how Ash’s journey in the show lines up with the journey you take in the game, and where it deviates (heresy alert: I played Fire Red, not Blue/Red/Yellow, because I like playing in colour *ducks for cover*). It’s sort of like the experience of watching the movie adaptation of a book you’ve read. Very interesting and rewarding.

Movies

Me Before You

Warning: spoilers about the ending in the second paragraph

I decided to go and see this one because it had not only Jenna Coleman in it, but also Emilia Clarke in the starring role — two of my favourite actresses currently. I really liked it. It wasn’t among the best movies of this romantic drama type genre that I’ve seen, but I found it an engaging and moving story all the same. I’d happily watch it again. The best reason to watch this movie is the performances of its leads, Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, who really were extraordinary and elevated what might have been another unremarkable romantic drama, in the absence of leading performances of such quality, into the enchanting screenplay that it was. Emilia Clarke, especially, was exceptional. I actually think her performance in Me Before You bests her work in Game of Thrones—certainly it’s very different.

I only found out about the controversy surrounding the movie afterwards, and I should say that I don’t really see what the fuss is about. It never occurred to me once while watching the movie that it was propagating any ancillary socio-political commentary about disabled people. Why can’t a story just be a story without imputing politics into it? It actually seemed to me that it dealt with its subject matter very delicately and sensitively, and, in fact, that the point it was making was the precise point for which Vincent and the Doctor was praised in its handling of depression, i.e. that, as much as you might try to help someone in such a situation, sometimes you just can’t, and sometimes there is no storybook happy ending.

The Scandalous Lady W

This is the BBC TV film about the historical Lady Worsley, from the late 18th Century, who eloped with a lover, who was criminally prosecuted by Lady Worsley’s husband for “stealing” his wife. Natalie Dormer stars as the “scandalous” Lady Worsley. Yes, Natalie Dormer, another one of my faves, was really the only reason I watched this film.

I can’t say I was satisfied, because the film wasn’t very good, in my opinion. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but the script didn’t feel as though it was written with as much conviction as the story merited—I felt as though it was a ripping story which could have made a very exciting film in another production team’s hands. Perhaps it was the decision to overtly stylise and dramatise the story that left me cold—I felt that if they had played it straighter I would have enjoyed it more; although, that said, I’m not a great fan of historical drama in general, despite being a huge history geek.

Nor were the performances particularly memorable. Again, it was all too dramatised and soap-operatised for my tastes. Too Downton Abbey. It didn’t feel as though I was watching real historical figures, but crude soap opera characters in period dress. Even Natalie Dormer, who is one of my favourite actresses, was somewhat disappointing. The only parts of the film that really engaged me were the courtroom scenes, which I think were the best sequences of the film, although I may only think that because I’m a law student who gets an unnatural thrill from watching court processes.

Typing Doctor Who: Clara Oswald (ESFP)

Posted on March 23, 2016 by P.J.

ESFPs:

Outgoing, friendly, and accepting. Exuberant lovers of life, people, and material comforts. Enjoy working with others to make things happen. Bring common sense and a realistic approach to their work, and make work fun. Flexible and spontaneous, adapt readily to new people and environments. Learn best by trying a new skill with other people.

(What is this? Read my Typing Doctor Who introduction.)

Clara is an adventurous thrill-seeker who enthusiastically soaks up the novel and fantastic experiences and sensations that travelling in the Tardis affords her. More than just loving the Tardis life, it’s obvious that she’s positively addicted to the life of risk and adventure that she leads with the Doctor. For Clara, the Doctor and the Tardis are a drug. This is clear, for example, when Clara, in Mummy on the Orient Express, throws her doubts and uncertainties, and resentment, about the Twelfth Doctor to the wind — lying to both the Doctor and Danny in the process — because she can’t keep away from the Tardis life. The Doctor even becomes concerned about Clara’s reckless and thrill-seeking attitude, as we see in Under the Lake and The Girl Who Died. To me, this all points emphatically to the dominant Extraverted Sensing (Se) function of the ESFP.

Clara’s relationship with Danny Pink (INFJ?) is also strong evidence of dominant Se. Given their natural desire to explore and seek excitement and novelty, ESFPs can sometimes feel constrained by relationships, and are hesitant about seriously committing to a person. Clara was never as invested in her relationship with Danny as he was, despite being the one who instigated the relationship in the first place. She was constantly trying to balance her relationship with Danny with her much more exciting life of adventure with the Doctor, with the result being that she never fully invested herself in that relationship. Her relationship with Danny was just one more thing in her life, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that, if she had been made to choose between Danny and the Doctor, she would choose the Doctor (and she kind of did, in Death in Heaven… “He is the closest person to me in this whole world. He is the man I will always forgive, always trust. The one man I would never, ever lie to.”) That said, I think she did really love Danny, but only realised the extent of her feelings for him after he died.

I wavered between ESFP and ESTP for Clara. Both are Se-dominant types, but the difference is in the auxiliary function: ESFPs have auxiliary Introverted Feeling (Fi), and ESTPs auxiliary Introverted Thinking (Ti). Clara often comes off as a Thinking type: she’s adept at working out solutions to problems that present themselves to her, and she’s particularly good at thinking on her feet. But there are other times she displays a lot of Introverted Feeling. I think this is where there is a lot of confusion about Clara’s type, and I think it’s because she isn’t an “archetypal” version of an ESFP or of any type. I think she’s an ESFP whose lower functions, Extraverted Thinking (Te) and Introverted Intuition (Ni) have undergone a great degree of development due to the influence of the (Twelfth) Doctor, whom I think is an INTJ, a type which uses all the four same cognitive functions as ESFPs, but in reverse order. Naturally, hanging around with a type who constantly uses your lower, weaker functions, and who has exercised as profound an influence over your personality as the Twelfth Doctor has over Clara’s, you’ll tend to experience a lot of development of those lower functions.*

So, in Series 9 we see Clara displaying a confident command of her tertiary Extraverted Thinking (Te), a function which seeks to impose order on the external world and figure out the most efficient, logical way of accomplishing goals and solving practical problems. In The Girl Who Died, she was the only one who thought to use the Vikings’ swords to attempt to jam the door on the Mire’s spaceship, and she deftly (and almost successfully, if it weren’t for some meddling kid) took to persuading the Mire to leave Earth in peace. In Before the Flood, she figured out that Lunn was able to bypass the ghosts to retrieve the phone, so they could talk to the Doctor. The show constantly makes it clear that Clara’s pragmatic, often cold logic is a product of the Doctor’s influence:

LUNN: “She said to ask you whether travelling with the Doctor changed you, or were you always happy to put other people’s lives at risk.”

CLARA: “He taught me to do what has to be done.”

In contrast, Clara’s auxiliary Introverted Feeling manifests itself more naturally and instinctively. Although she’s good with people and has fluent social skills (typical for an ESFP), she’s generally more attuned to her own feelings than those of others, and, especially in her relations with the Doctor, frequently elevates the importance of her own feelings. In her outburst at the Doctor in Kill the Moon, she didn’t even try to engage with the Doctor’s logic or perspective, insisting that her own feelings of abandonment were paramount. In Dark Water, she attempted to blackmail the Doctor into bringing Danny Pink back, contemptuously brushing aside the Doctor’s protestations about the laws of time, which paled in importance, in her view, before her feelings. She did something similar in Before the Flood when the Doctor decided he had to die because he saw his ghost (“Not with me! Die with whoever comes after me. You do not leave me.”) And I don’t see what Clara’s insistence that the Doctor not wipe her memory in Hell Bent, disregarding the Time Lords’ solemn warnings about the fracturing of time, is if not a manifestation of Introverted Feeling. On the other hand, Clara protested against the Doctor activating the Moment in The Day of the Doctor, despite seeing no other alternative, because she felt on a deep, personal level that what the Doctor was doing was wrong, logic and pragmatism be damned.**

In summary, Clara is an ESFP, an adventurous thrill-seeker, driven by exploration, who thrives on excitement and sensory stimulation, albeit, by Series 9, a more balanced, well-rounded one who has successfully developed the weaker sides of her personality through her association with the Twelfth Doctor. I should mention that one of my best friends is a female ESFP, and it was seeing such a striking resemblance between Clara and my friend that first made me see Clara as an ESFP. Both are passionate, excitable, energetic people who live for adventure and experience, and I adore them both.

* It’s also, I think, because Clara’s personality has been something of an enigma over her time on the show. In Series 7 there wasn’t much to her character beyond the Impossible Girl arc, and what personality she had was a generic constellation of standard Moffat female character tropes. In Series 8 the writers gave her personality more substance, but I felt like they still only had a very general idea of what Clara’s character was supposed to be. Only by Series 9 did Clara feel like a realistic, convincing, fleshed-out character—and it’s on Clara’s character in Series 9 that I’m predominantly basing this personality analysis.

** I hope I haven’t come across as too disparaging of Fi here with my mostly “negative” examples of Clara’s use of Fi. I was just using the most overt examples of Clara’s Fi, and, also, because it’s not a function I have myself, I don’t thoroughly understand it except by description, and so I find I struggle to recognise it except by its more obvious manifestations. I assure Fi-users that I don’t have a negative view of Fi at all—in fact it’s probably one of the functions that most fascinates me.

Doctor Who headcanon #4

Posted on February 26, 2016 by P.J.

Let’s talk about sex. In particular, sex involving the Doctor. Or, you know, just love and romance in general. The topic of my fourth headcanon exposition is the Doctor and love, romance and sexuality.

The question of the Doctor’s sexual preference, or how (and if) the Doctor feels sexual or romantic attraction, is a nebulous one because we’ve never really got anything that could be described as a straight answer. Before the 1996 TV Movie, in which Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor kissed Grace Holloway, there were no suggestions that the Doctor experienced love or sexual attraction at all, apart from the occasional very subtle hint which may not have actually been hints at all*. We did know, at least, that the Doctor, in his first incarnation, had a granddaughter, Susan, so, logically, at some point he had to have had children and a wife or lover.

In the revived series, though, we’ve been hit hard and fast with pretty unambiguous evidence that the Doctor does, indeed, experience love or romantic attraction of some kind. The Tenth Doctor fell in love with Rose, became smitten with Reinette (Madame de Pompadour), Astrid Peth and Lady Christina de Souza, and began a fledgling romance with Joan Redfern (albeit as a human). The Eleventh Doctor and the Twelfth Doctor both loved River Song. The Eleventh Doctor clearly had a crush on Clara (“a mystery wrapped in an enigma squeezed into a skirt that’s just a little too tight…”), and there have been subtle suggestions of romantic tension between the Twelfth Doctor and Clara**.

So, my interpretation of the above is that it’s pretty clear that the Doctor experiences romantic attraction. It used to be the general presumption among the Doctor Who fandom, at least until the 1996 TV Movie, that the Doctor is asexual, in that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction—which would be consistent with the proposition that he still experiences romantic attraction, because asexuals can still feel romantically or personally attracted to someone, although not sexually or physically attracted. None of the evidence negatives the idea that the Doctor is asexual—in his various attractions he has always displayed an attraction or infatuation that is personal but not necessarily sexual or physical, i.e. we never saw the Doctor sneaking peeks at Rose’s bum or checking out River in her tight, revealing outfits.

I would propose that the Doctor is asexual, but for the complication of that one line of the Eleventh Doctor’s about Clara (“a skirt that’s just a little too tight…”). You could reason it away by suggesting it was just a throwaway line, that the Doctor was just babbling, as is his usual manner, but somehow I don’t think the Doctor would know to make a comment like that if he hadn’t noticed that Clara, er, not to put too fine a point on it, has a very alluring figure which is particularly pronounced in the tight dresses she wore in Series 7. At the same time, there’s the issue of how the Doctor had a grandchild***, and therefore children, if he didn’t at one point have a wife or lover with whom he conceived those children. In short, the Doctor must have had sex.

I’m concluding that the Doctor does experience sexual attraction, but I don’t think to the same extent as humans do. I’m inclined to think this would be a product of the Time Lords’ evolution: beings that have such advanced lifespans, that can live “practically forever, barring accidents” would very quickly overpopulate and ravage their own planet, and go extinct, if they had the same hyper-charged sex drive as we short-lived humans. But, at the same time, they would also go extinct if they were a completely asexual species with no natural impulse to reproduce. I’m thinking that a latent or negligible sex drive evolved in the Gallifreyan species alongside its ultra-extended lifespan to ensure its survival. The other possibility is that, like Tolkien’s Elves, Time Lords have a normal sex drive in youth but which quickly wanes after peak childbearing age, leading to a condition for the rest of their lives of virtual asexuality, although we could assume that, even then, some latent sexual attraction remained (evolution is rarely so neat and tidy).

Either of those theories could account for the Doctor’s history of onscreen romances and attractions, I think, and I don’t necessarily have a preference for either. The point is that, in my headcanon, Time Lords’ sexuality differs greatly from human sexuality for evolutionary reasons, with the implication being that, the Doctor, as a mature Time Lord, doesn’t experience sexual attraction to the extent humans do, although he’s still perfectly capable of experiencing romantic love and personal attraction.

What do you think of my headcanon? What do you think about the Doctor’s sexuality?

* I.e. Jo Grant and Sarah-Jane Smith. I personally ship Four and Romana.

** Disclosure: Whouffaldi shipper.

*** There are fan theories suggesting that the Doctor’s relationship with Susan wasn’t actually biological, that Susan is the Doctor’s “granddaughter” in some other sense that didn’t involve the Doctor conceiving children with someone. There is also the pseudo-canon of the Virgin novels (i.e. Lungbarrow) that suggests that Time Lords don’t actually come into being through sexual reproduction, that they are artificially conceived through genetic “looms”. I’m ignoring all this and assuming that Time Lords do reproduce the same way as us (given that they have the same parts as us, as confirmed amusingly in Deep Breath) and that Susan is the Doctor’s biological granddaughter.

Admin note: Maybe you’ve noticed my absence over the last two weeks (I’d be flattered if you did!). I’ve just got back from a holiday to Melbourne this week, which I kind of needed badly, and enjoyed very much. So now I’m back, and my regular (erratic, disorganised) posting schedule should resume normal service!

Steven Moffat’s Top 10 (Part 1)

Posted on February 4, 2016 by P.J.

Having digested the news that our Dear Leader, Steven Moffat, is to retire as Doctor Who showrunner, I have decided to look back on what this remarkable writer has contributed in his career to this remarkable show. I’m counting down my picks for Steven Moffat’s ten best scripts for Doctor Who — although I hope, of course, careful not to be premature about this, that Moffat, in his final series, will deliver yet more astounding writing and that I can say in a little over a year’s time that this list is redundant.

This list is obviously subjective, based on my own opinions and estimations, as there is no objective way to compile a “Definitive Top 10” of anything that can’t be measured. So don’t take this list too seriously if you happen to disagree (as you may) with my picks.

Anyway, without further ado…

10. The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone

In his first series as showrunner, Moffat brought back his acclaimed creations, the terrifying Weeping Angels, and stuck the Doctor and Amy in a spaceship teeming with them. It’s an exhilarating and dramatic base-under-siege with enemies that were practically made for this format. The suspense and the adrenaline never lets up: it’s a tight and absorbing pair of episodes that do justice to the Weeping Angels’ second ever outing, after their introduction in the sensational Blink. It also has Steven Moffat’s signature flair for engaging character writing, as Eleven, Amy and River Song (and their respective actors, of course) are all at their luminous best. Notable scenes include Amy stuck in a trailer with a Weeping Angel materialising out of a video recording, and Amy stumbling, blind, through the forest while surrounded by Angels.

9. The Day of the Doctor

Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special was an extravagant, uplifting homage to the show and its fans, indulging shamelessly in the show’s heritage and featuring not just one, but three (four? thirteen?) Doctors. I can’t remember laughing more at an episode of Doctor Who than I did watching Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt perform the hilarious dialogue with each other in this episode. The brilliance of The Day of the Doctor owes much to the novelty of seeing Matt Smith and David Tennant, along with John Hurt, together onscreen as leads, but it’s also an exceptional story in general. It isn’t a sophisticated, artistic work of writing as many of Moffat’s other most acclaimed scripts are, but it’s a jubilant, well-put together and emotionally satisfying celebration of Doctor Who that only a writer with a deep love and reverence for this show could have written. I adore it.

8. A Christmas Carol

Still the best Christmas special by a good length, and, in my opinion, one of the best things Moffat has written for the show. A Christmas Carol isn’t often mentioned among lists of “Moffat’s best”, because, well, it’s a Christmas special and aren’t Christmas specials just light, insubstantial seasonal fluff? Not “real” Doctor Who? Well, yes, generally, but Christmas specials can still be fantastic pieces of writing and production, as I believe A Christmas Carol is, perhaps ironically for the most overtly “Christmassy” of Doctor Who’s Christmas specials. It was an absorbing, heartwarming and very emotional story, a recreation of the eponymous Charles Dickens tale with the unique Doctor Who twist of time travel. It’s filled with enchanting moments, such as all the adventures the Doctor has with young Kazran and Abigail, whose blossoming relationship is beautiful, but also very poignant moments such as elderly Kazran’s emotional catharsis when confronted with his younger self. It’s a perfect Christmas tale.

7. The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

It’s hard not to love this one, the bold, explosive two-part opener to Series 6. Like The Magician’s Apprentice, this extravagant opener begun Series 6 with a story pretty much the of the scale and atmosphere of a finale, although in fact it set up the various arc threads which would weave their way throughout Series 6 and culminate in the timey-wimey finale. This story introduced the Silence, probably my favourite monster in Doctor Who, in my opinion one of the more menacing and genuinely scary creatures in the show. Like the Weeping Angels, Moffat’s other notable creature creation, they’re very creepy monsters based on a neat psychological trick, their ability to cause the observer to forget them after looking away. In the episodes this made for many creepy scenes, like Amy being confronted by the Silent in the White House bathroom, and Amy in the Silence-infested orphanage. The plot constructed around the threat of the Silence to human civilisation was also great, suspenseful and claustrophobic drama, and the aesthetic of Americana lends the story an irresistible mood and swagger.

6. The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

The two-part Series 5 finale remains, to my mind, the best finale of the revival. It’s a superlative script that oozes Moffat’s style and voice all over. It’s a delightfully clever script that deceptively wrong-foots the viewer and then radically changes course halfway through. In many ways it’s the archetypal Moffat finale: it’s an expansive, high-stakes plot with a thrilling concept at its core, involving a very timey-wimey threat in an exploding Tardis that threatens to cause the implosion of the whole universe; but it also carries a profound emotional and character-centred quality, punctuated by touching character moments such as Rory’s pledging himself to stand guard over Amy for 2,000 years, and the Doctor’s pathetic goodbye to little Amelia in her bedroom as he fades from the universe. This story embodies those two staples of Moffat’s style: a penchant for clever and intricate storytelling and especially imaginative exploitation of the narrative possibilities of time travel; and a firm anchoring, from a storytelling perspective, in characters and their relationships.

Stay tuned for my top 5 Moffat stories! Please?

Ideas for the next companion

Posted on January 26, 2016 by P.J.

So Clara’s gone. That happened. She flew away in a stolen Tardis with Maisie Williams, and the Doctor’s memories about her were deleted. You know, it took me a long time to warm to Clara, but now she’s gone I know I’m really going to miss her. She and Twelve became one of my favourite ever Doctor-Companion teams; I thought they worked so perfectly together, and it was a gut-wrencher having to see them parted. But times change, the show moves forward, we move on, and a new companion is on the way.

No announcement has yet been made about who will be playing the new companion, but I think we should expect some details quite soon, given that filming for Series 10 is supposed to be starting in April (or at least it was, before Moffat threw a spanner into the works…). I’ve had some ideas, though, on possibilities for the next companion…

A teenager

I’m not sure why I’ve become so enamoured by the prospect of a teenager accompanying the Doctor on his travels, but a teenage companion is one of my favourite possibilities for the next companion. Perhaps it’s the interesting contrast a teenage companion could pose to the companions we’ve had in New Who so far, which, with the notable exception of Donna, have all been ordinary, well-adjusted, twenty-something year-old British women. There’s nothing wrong with ordinary, well-adjusted, twenty-something year-old British women, but it’s starting to get a bit repetitive and tiresome.

A teenager, though, presents very different, and unique, possibilities. Teenage years are a formative, difficult, confusing, sometimes terrifying, sometimes perilous, but also vibrant and ecstatic, and beautiful, time of life. One is almost always a very different person as an adult, even a twenty-something adult, to when one was a teenager, and twenty-somethings who dispute it have forgotten what it was like to be that age. There are possibilities and directions in a teenage companion that aren’t realistically available with an older companion, and the Doctor’s dynamic with a teenage companion, if the companion is actually written well, promises to be very different from any Doctor-Companion dynamic so far in the modern show.

A Tardis Team

A Tardis Team, as I define it, is a team of two or more companions who are equally important as characters in a narrative sense. Examples from the show’s history include the companions who travelled with the First and Second Doctors, who both liked to travel with more than one companion at a time, including the very first set of companions: Susan, Ian and Barbara with the First Doctor; also, notably, Jamie and Zoe with the Second Doctor. In addition, the Fifth Doctor for most of his time travelled with at least three companions at a time, at first Adric, Tegan and Nyssa. New Who has never had a (regular) Tardis team; the Eleventh Doctor travelled with Amy and Rory, but Amy was clearly the principal companion.

For a shake-up, I’d welcome a new Tardis Team. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go for three permanent companions, as it would get far too crowded (not to mention expensive), recreating the difficulties of the Davison era, but a two-companion team could definitely work. The drawbacks of a Tardis Team are that less time can be afforded to developing characterisation for each main character, leading, perhaps, to characters that feel less fleshed-out, but the main areas of potential are variety in characters and a unique group dynamic. It’s the potential for group dynamic that really intrigues me about the idea of a Tardis team, as it would present such a stark contrast to the Twelve-Clara dynamic, which took the personal, one-on-one Doctor-Companion relationship to an extreme. A group of companions would be something completely different, and I’d be interested to see Twelve operating in such a contrasting character setting.

My favourite idea for a Tardis team is a male and female set of companions, who aren’t necessarily romantically involved (at least at first; I could get on board with a blossoming romance between the companions). I call to mind Ian and Barbara, Ben and Polly, Jamie and Victoria, Jamie and Zoe, as useful precedents. I can see Twelve as the madcap grandfather zooming about in time and space with his companions, who are like his adoptive grandchildren. There would be a very warm and engaging familial and paternal dynamic.

Someone not from Earth

I’m using “someone not from Earth” as an umbrella term to include all manner of companions of non-terrestrial origin, including both non-human aliens and humans from elsewhere in the universe (presumably from the future). The reason I’m attracted to a non-terrestrial companion is much the same as the reason I’m attracted to a teenage companion: it would make for an interesting change; it would be different. Maybe I’m just desperate at this stage for a new companion who doesn’t conform to the conventional profile, but I do actually think there are very interesting possibilities in a companion who comes from a radically different society, civilisation and culture from ours. It would mean a wholly different perspective, especially with regard to ourselves: there are great opportunities, for the willing writer, for commentary on our society from the point of view of an outsider.

I’m particularly attracted to the idea of a Time Lady as a companion. Now that Gallifrey’s back, a Time Lady companion is now eminently possible. Romana (both of her) was my favourite companion from the classic series, and I think Four and Romana were a brilliant Doctor and Companion team. That said, I don’t necessarily want another Time Lady companion to be Romana 2.0 (and the writers would have to be careful not to make her so). I like the idea of a young (for a Time Lady, so 100 years or so), energetic, relatively inexperienced, immature Time Lady, who, like the Doctor, doesn’t fit into oppressive, stultified, hidebound Gallifreyan society, and wants to escape and explore the universe. She has more energy and wanderlust than experience and prudence, and needs the Doctor as a mentor and guide of sorts. There’d be a master-and-apprentice dynamic. There’s also the potential for a spinoff that doesn’t involve Arya Stark in a flying American diner. But I’m rambling — the point is, a Time Lady companion would be brilliant.

The main pitfall of a non-terrestrial companion might be that the show would be too inaccessible to the audience, especially if the companion is a non-human alien. The narrative role of the companion is, strictly speaking, an audience avatar, and it’s obviously less possible for the companion to play that role if she or he is just as alien as the Doctor. That is, definitely, something the writers need to have at the forefront of their minds if a non-terrestrial companion is settled upon.

Someone from the past/future

I’m just going through all the possibilities now for a companion that isn’t an ordinary twenty-something British woman. The opportunities presented by a companion from the past or the future are similar to those presented by a non-terrestrial companion, in particular the different perspective a companion from another time would bring to the Doctor’s adventures. We’ve had companions from the past (Victoria, Jamie, and Victorian Clara; and Leela may as well have been from the past), and the future (Vicki, Zoe, Steven, Jack Harkness).

For my own part, I’m more drawn to a companion from the past. A companion from the future would still be very interesting, but I feel that the wonder and the novelty of space-time travel and advanced technologies and civilisations would be more emphatically conveyed through the eyes of someone from Earth’s past. I’m also a huge history geek, so I love the idea of plucking someone from ancient Rome (or better yet, the Middle Ages, where most people’s whole worlds were two-by-two square miles) and taking them on adventures in time and space. A historical companion might come with the drawback of the Doctor needing to explain what a mobile phone or a touchscreen or indoor plumbing or Twitter is every five seconds. That danger could be avoided with skill, though, as the show did with Leela.